Guild Wars 2

DiogoSilva.7089:

Anet had different design philosphies for the elementalist since the launch of the game. Early on, we were meant to be glass cannons – high damage, low defense, and a reliance on active defenses. Some months since the game is out, we were meant to be jacks-of-all-trades, being weaker than normal at everything, but being able to do a bit of everything. Our skill diversity would be a “specialization” by itself.

The main problem with those two philosophies, is that the core elements needed to make them work are not there.

Our active defenses are heavily reliant on defensive stats (healing wants healing power and toughness and auras want vitality and toughness), which made glass cannon builds mostly unneffective (we have less evades and less blocks for more heals and auras, but what’s the point of heals and auras if we don’t have high healing power and if we don’t have enough self defense to warrant taking hits?). For this reason, only our defensive builds can make great use of our active defenses.

Meanwhile, our higher skill diversity is screwed by the amount of underpowered skills we have, especially 3 of our 4 auto-attacks in every single weapon set we have (only lightning whip, and slightly less so, fireball and arc lightning are good). Skills like Shatterstone and Fire Aura are useless, Dust Devil and Flamewall are greatly underpowered, Rock Barrier/ Hurl and several of our focus skills are only situationally decent and very mediocre otherwise. D/D has the most consistent set of useful skills, but they’re not enough to justify the melee range.

I’ve seen about two (?) times this issue about our useless skills raised to Anet, and both those times, Jon Peters has said that we “have so many skills”, which I interpret as, it’s not easy to balance them all, and making buffs to some might imply nerfs to others, and I can understand all of this. However, if our “high skill diversity” really IS meant to be our core advantage, then Anet should seriously priotize it, because as it currently is, it’s nothing but an illusion.

Fix our active defenses to make them less dependent on defensive stats, and the initial glass cannon philosophy for our class can work. Fix our useless skills, and the jack-of-all-trades philosophy might also work (although that one is still a questionable philosophy).

Yes, idea is good, flaw is implementation…rangers and pve thieves suffer the same thing, and there is no easy answer for any of it

But “jack-of-all-trades” and “glass cannon” are mutually exclusive as pointed out in a much earlier post… glass cannon means you dps. Only. The other means you basically can’t do anything very well at all, but you do some of it all. If this was the plan then by that metric, they might claim there is nothing wrong with the ele’s…dysfunctions

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

this is working as intended.
warriors are meant to be fast.
what is the problem?

do you remember that warriors have no direct access to:
- stealth
- illusions
- death shroud
- pets
- minions
- protection, aegis

warriors are balanced and not overpowered, it has been more than a year since launch, please accept that already.

epic bro, except that:
Illusions are hard hitting, and basically all the mesmer really has for good dps…they are a pet bound class (but not blighted as the rangers who will follow shortly)
Minons (necro and engi) are increasingly useless in larger content
Ranger pets are the cancer that has broken the class in all but solo and some VERY specific group content
Aegis? really? ERMEGRRRD mah HB did 12k insteduv 14k coz 1 blok!
Protection is kind of in the same boat, it’s effect is easily overwhelmed

Steath and Death Shroud, you got me there…but DS is all a necro has cause they are clothies with ZERO movement abilities to really speak of, and they are, in fact..clothies, so they will die VERY fast when a direct assault gets past their stuff. Thieves similar, stealth is the only thing that makes that class viable, abuse it (aka use it to the max and be accused of exploit/hax or w/e) or roll something else, no happy middle ground there unfortunately

as per the land speed thing…i see partly where the OP is coming from, except that instead of nerfing warriors, how about re reinstate the ones other classes used /cough ride the lightning /cough and call it a day… i think buffs instead of nerfs would anger far fewer of the people who come to the forums

Why you all so worried about your celestial stuff? Unless i missed something GIANT that extra crit damage would not have made up for having lower than average power AND lower than average precision…

That being said, this same incoming nerf has me about to leave the game cause I spent a month worth of laurels on the assassin stat, who’s entire point was build around crit more, use crit damage more…so i might be even more screwed than the celestial people. This after dropping $100 on flamekissed armor (I’m going to wait to see how badly their art department fails on it cause they havent released a single new armor set since launch that grabbed my attention anything like human t3 cultural that at least 1 asuran npc wears…i hate u all), and the dragonite farming that I’ve posted so many time i’d rather farm gold for (in dungeons for me..off-topic), the dying story (sylvari on rag was old after queens jubilee)…and other stuff i’ve since been blessed to forget…

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE gimme something solid here on just how badly I’m about to get boned out of a month worth of dailies, and so many hours hating my play time in the same old metas just to keep up with friends who didnt choose the ones that will get hit the hardest…this and please look at my long post history of gripes about asymmetry and armor designs for norn females BEFORE you make the flamekiss redo is all i really ask

LordByron.8369:

Inimicus.7162:

The whole thing just feels clunky to most of us i would imagine, and it’s so hard to put into words because it’s not one small thing or other that would need changing to fix the current system.

For months people askied for better autoattacks….
Staff:
Fire is totally slow and unreliable
Air is just awful
Water can stay as it is
Earth dunno.

Scepter:
Fire: >_> what s that?
Air: cool
water: its a low damage attu anyway
earth: ok maybe

Dagger:
Fire: unreliable
air: awesome but glitchy
Water: can stay
earth: >______> what’s this?

well, these are all small things lol.

I can make some decent enough pve spike damage on my ele doing the attunement dance the dev’s so love (they have said in the past that the swapping is at the core of their design…then they made the attunement recharges longer couple months ago) while i generally do ok.. the ele is only slighly less complicated than the engi to get right lol, but yes… they removed the aftercasts from so many skills and that made the ele playable, but i hope they keep at it and tweak those issues because i’m 100% with you on those, and do something for us regarding the attunement two step we all gotta do to make the thing work no matter what weapons we carry lol.

I’m curious how it might turn out if they make attunement recharge rates bound to putting points in that specific trait’s line… sorry, but the ele concept is way too complex to get right given the structure of the trait system, and the limit on the number of weapon skills (further made awkward with having chosen to jury rig what amounts to 5 themed skills into each of 4 different skill sets)

EDIT: 5 skills into 4 otherwise basically unrelated sub-sets of skills, and have it work

love the thread and the ideas…. i have more specific issues pertaining to the pet, but many are listed above: and i saved this to a file to copy/paste cause im tired of rewriting the same things over and over:

For ranger pets: The thing is always in the world, is never invulnerable, thus is
ALWAYS a target, and always on the aggro table…this could be changed such that
“pet passive” applies the determined buff, but unlikely because it would be too
easy to exploit. SO: pet on the aggro table, what does this do? Well, it all has
to do with mob stacking. Sorry , but there is just no more efficient way of
killing off 2-3 (or 30, doesnt matter) mobs than to stack em all up and go hog wild
with the aoe. The ranger’s pet causes issues here because mobs generally only pull
so many at the time (typically 6-7 max) before they “run out of room” around the
player and reset themselves. The ranger’s pet is a hinderance because it allows
that many more mobs to be already aggro’d, locking you the ranger in comat, but
they arent going to focus on you until your group is dead, and/or your pet is
(takes about the same length of time to kill off 2-3 of 7 as it does for your pet
to die). OK, l2p? sure..except that that same principal applies when fighting
things like Mai Trin, or the Wardens in the marionette fight… whether alive,
dead, passive or otherwise, that ranger pet (likely with low dps table and higher
toughness as per what generally pulls highest aggro currently) is drawing aggro to
itself, and can NOT be controlled with specific movements in any way (such as to
reliably bring a mob/boss somewhere you need it to be..mai trin and the blue aoe
field, marionette wardens and any kiting/stacking/facing issues that need to be
done). And worse during Mai Trin: the cannon barrage phase that stupid pet is
going to draw extra cannon fire to you, the ranger, alive, dead, passive, other…
thus unless its one of those rather terrible rangers (i seen no shortage of people
on rangers who i swear might not be able to tie their own shoes)…then its some
mechanic about the specific fight (mechanics that are absolutely everywhere by
design, mind you) that the pet’s presence causes to short circuit and make that
mechanic needlessly harder to achieve. That’s why even good rangers are so reviled
in anything other than MUCH older open world content… though most blindly blame
the player instead of whoever made the design call that rangers will be forced to
have this thing with them.

My only suggestion is a total overhaul or otherwise have the pet just be purely for RP, but a complete non-combatant otherwise because they said many times they WILL NOT make a permanent stow, and WILL NOT allow rangers to be without pets.

+1 for the utilities too, i say the whole class could use a huge overhaul to make it in keeping with the group dynamics that current trend of content designs only have getting larger, and larger

agreed with the comment about “normal lupi kills” and 30 seconds for those is a very, very major understatement for “normal” groups

Either way, I vote Lupi for all new meta’s… people are going on about the frost bow for the same general thing… statioinary target = super high dps (cause they think teq’s … hit box actually moves outside of specific phase changes or something i guess). But yes, if you get into a pug and they expect a lupi to die faster than all the previous bosses they probably cheesed to death (exploited, but nobody been banned for those yet afaik) then they should be voted off the island immediately and told where they can shove it unless the group is asking quite explicitly for such a pugger

cause teq’s … hit box without …. becomes teq’kitten box lololololol epic.

kyubi.3620:

So I suggest that 30~75% of the pet’s stats are predetirmined and that the the rest should scale (some stats are an exception like condition and boon duration).

This is what ive been talking about since the start. They need to give pet some predetermined stat and the rest is determined by player gear (aka the same as with GW 1 pet nature customisation but made via your equipment, the same bear may be dealing better damage or having better survivability depending on its nature so why not make the pet customisable trought gear?)

because the pet itself IS the issue in the case of the ranger’s bear… for rangers: The thing is always in the world, is never invulnerable, thus is ALWAYS a target, and always on the aggro table…this could be changed such that “pet passive” applies the determined buff, but unlikely because it would be too easy to exploit. SO: pet on the aggro table, what does this do? Well, it all has to do with mob stacking. Sorry , but there is just no more efficient way of killing off 2-3 (or 30, doesnt matter) mobs than to stack em all up and go hog wild with the aoe. The ranger’s pet causes issues here because mobs generally only pull so many at the time (typically 6-7 max) before they “run out of room” around the player and reset themselves. The ranger’s pet is a hinderance because it allows that many more mobs to be already aggro’d, locking you the ranger in combat, but they arent going to focus on you until your group is dead, and/or your pet is (takes about the same length of time to kill off 2-3 of 7 as it does for your pet to die). OK, l2p? sure..except that that same principal applies when fighting things like Mai Trin, or the Wardens in the marionette fight… whether alive, dead, passive or otherwise, that ranger pet (likely with low dps table and higher toughness as per what generally pulls highest aggro currently) is drawing aggro to itself, and can NOT be controlled with specific movements in any way (such as to reliably bring a mob/boss somewhere you need it to be..mai trin and the blue aoe field, marionette wardens and any kiting/stacking/facing issues that need to be done). And worse during Mai Trin: the cannon barrage phase that stupid pet is going to draw extra cannon fire to you, the ranger, alive, dead, passive, other… thus unless its one of those rather terrible rangers (i seen no shortage of people on rangers who i swear might not be able to tie their own shoes)…then its some mechanic about the specific fight (mechanics that are absolutely everywhere by design, mind you) that the pet’s presence causes to short circuit and make that mechanic needlessly harder to achieve. That’s why even good rangers are so reviled in anything other than MUCH older open world content… though most blindly blame the player instead of whoever made the design call that rangers will be forced to have this thing with them.

Which to the OP is the reason Mesmer pets are OK imo right now, they have high damage, but the class itself has basically nothing on its own without them, they require a target and constant maintenance to keep them alive in long fights, or to re-summon them in much shorter ones. Necro pets are somewhere in the middle..things need to be able to heal up between battles, and are in the same boat as ranger pets in dungeons and such, but the necro (and engi for that matter) isn’t forced to deal with said issues as a permanently affixed cancer on the class.

Well, i kinda agree with the op though… from the ranger’s standpoint the mesmer ISNT forced to have the pos pets out full time, thus isnt subjected to the same issues as caused by ranger pets which are powerful…until they get hit about 2-3 times by anything other than a player… Mesmer currently is basically just the ranger done correctly by the BS and unimplementable pet model the ranger is tied to… help my ranger, leave mesmers as is imo

and i agree to the necro pet thing, that is something i always kinda scratched my head at lol

oZii.2864:

We are past the classes not being like GW1 I never played the class but it is just kind of pointless to bring it up. Even your example you say it is a much deeper difference then just the attunement system and that it is also tied to the way attribute points work etc.

I thought you where just gonna give a suggestion of make it like gw1 and it would be easy in the current system but the difference is the entire system not just attunements. That is not this game no point to even be mad about it 1.5 years later.

Meh, i’m pointing out that the current system is a lazy patch band aid to make the class work with the same system as everyone else with the bare minimum effort, and that it suffers horribly from weird complexities caused the lack of available skills to choose from.. and that gw1’s system was better for what it’s supposed to do.
Basic issue: 5 weapon skills no matter what you carry (unless you DO wanna nerf yourself intentionally), broken down into 4 “elements” and 4 different sets of cooldowns that are tied together in a rather clunky dance around need for swapping. Certainly, the ele gets “moar skillz” at their disposal than any other, and for the moment the band-aid is holding…but the only gripe the devs are likely not to tl;dr at is the skill line up issue.
The lineup of the 20 elementalist weapon skills for any set is a weird dance around individual skill cooldowns, attunement cooldowns and “what do i actually need at this second.” The trait lines are effed up because if you want more healing, or more damage, or reduced cooldowns out of a specific line of elements, you have to spend points in those…but you also have to dance around the fact that there is a 5th line almost totally unrelated to the rest that governs the cooldowns on the attunement swaps too…

Ignoring specific abilities staff or scepter it goes something like so:
Fire does dps…good.
OH NOES SPIKE INC /earth
“HRNG IM DYING” /water
—fire still on cooldown, needs dps—- /air
CC mob cause not much damage here
—5 second later—
NUUU NEEDS HEALZ /water
@*&^#%$&^ fire back on CD
—runs around like crackhead for a few seconds—
/fire and win
fight done.

^This is about the average fight for most ele when solo and anything of otherwise medium difficulty gets involved, and it has to do with the cooldown dance, the lack of weapon ability synergy across elements.. The whole thing just feels clunky to most of us i would imagine, and it’s so hard to put into words because it’s not one small thing or other that would need changing to fix the current system.

3 pages of stuff is worthy of tl:dr

but leave fgs rush alone… an extra one drops for some1 else in the party for a very good reason.. Also that fire rush isn’t the only way of getting the same effect, it just so happens to be more powerful than abusing the staff retreat (turn around and do it…yea, i said it, eat it too while you at it) or the dagger fire rush that does the same thing… how about we nerf all underwater spear charges that work the same way cause then i will start avoiding the water like all the other scaredy cats who don’t care to watch how certain skills work and use that to their advantage…

I can guarantee you its going to catch some kind of nerf, it already has taken a slight one actually (used to run a WHOLE LOT farther before the nerfs that changed skills people used for mobility in epicly annoying huge places with not enough wps..wvw mostly.

end rage.
OK fine, maybe it does to a little too much damage, but frankly a nerf to fgs specifically would be unfair because other skills like the afore mentioned underwater stuff, and plenty of things used by mobs (abomination head charge, risen drake broodmama headcharge+wtfwtfwtf poison fields) etc ad nauseum… would still abuse the same basic mechanic for far too much damage done, so i vote leave fgs alone simply because its so uber situational, and its the only thing an ele has to make up for being such a needlessly complex (and otherwise needlessly underpowered) class

Wintel.4873:

What exactly was GW1 Ele design?

Same as every other GW1 class, but similarly you put your points into a named attribute to power abilities which were tied to that specific attribute.

So more “Air magic” means more damage from shocker air magic skills, and air magic only. And the same with the other elements.

As opposed to GW2 here where the “traits” and attributes are the closest things together…traits being attributes with perks along the way basically.
It should be noted also, the entire system is different here beyond simply that…it is not the same class in any way, shape or form beyond being skinned as a magic user in light armor. GW1 had hundreds of skills available for each class, and you could attribute up to fit exactly what you wanted to do… and every element tree in GW1 was possessed of some means of DPS (water magic was nerf dps in pve for some never explained reason, but it was still very much there), some useful condition, and a number of other things… similar to gw2 you had enough attribute points to max 2 different attributes, or make the exact same splits we have here. (12/12/3) vs (30/30/10)

In gw2, your choice of traits has some impact on the element for which the line is named, but “water magic” does NOT give you any dps to speak of, any more than “arcane” traits (formerly energy storage in gw1) gives you healing etc…
Again, class is different beastie totally here… they designed it around this weird attunement swapping thing probably as a band-aid to keep it from having a unique or somewhat longer system of attributes/traits to handle people like me who hate what they did with lightning/air magic for example…

To be clear, the way I would have my ele would basically require them make 4 (or 5, but by lore only 4) different versions of the class and tie 4 said trait lines (1 for each element) to the same system we have now… while it could have been done, it would have been a bit of extra work and like my poor, poor ranger (ele is second choice) they have announced many times that it isn’t worth their time/money to spend the resources to redesign the things.

My ele works, but like the engi, or a thief, it takes a whole lot of doing where i could just go hop on my warrior, go GS mash #2 and win. That is why i would love seeing the extra work put into the ele, ranger, etc…and the fact that it isn’t worth the time/money/effort isn’t going to stop me from voicing my typically ignored opinions

Sizer.5632:

Theyve actually been nerfed the last few patches and theyre getting another few small nerfs in the coming one, to answer your question. They seem to be taking it slow which is a good thing in the long run imo.

But who knows, maybe the devs will get griefed by an one while on their warriors, and the next week engies will be knocked down to the level of eles.

this…it took then up to a couple months ago to finally break the ranger’s last legs

I get the feeling the grief thing is what happened to some dev’s pet warrior from my GW1 ele, hence why that class is so epicly mediocre for its complexity

To the comment about engi skills being broken and such…yea. Class should be so much more powerful than it is, and it’s lack of power is because their non-kit weapons were nerfed under the table, and only a couple of their kits do the damage in pve to bring home the bacon… I have a feeling that anyone who tried engi and gave up likely started it in pve and found all those issues before it hit 80 and could put on things like its insane bunker/control builds and a couple others to see what the thing is still actually capable of doing in spite of all the broken stuff.

And to the turret ai…get in line, your class isn’t purpose built around some epic fail pet that’s forced on you and ruins all small-group oriented activities with it’s mere presence generating aggro/mob placement/stacking issues (mai trin, marionette wardens, coe alpha, ac spider and kholer…the list goes on), while i would like to see better ai, at least you can detonate your turrets to stop the —the only word for this class of deformities is censored as “kitten”-- from auto aggroing anything in range.

phaeris.7604:

After having played a glass canon thief the main thing to remember is the c+d/steal combo is 900 range. (playing ele now).

It can be dodged, and all decent players will do that. Soon as you see them approach use a dodge/aegis/etc, to stop the initial burst. Steal won’t be up for another 20 seconds or so.

They have 4 seconds from stealthing to get into position to backstab, and if using c+d have to be near you to restealth off it. It costs 5 initiative so you can’t afford to screw it up twice in a row.

Basically you should work on timings a bit better.

But…if you’re already in a fight and you get added on by a glass thief then you’re dead. But the same works in reverse so what can you do!

only pointing out that mist form’s cooldown is rather insane, so the ele’s counterplay will only work one time and i’ve never seen a theif give up on a squishy target like that unless ive managed to drag it out at least a good 15-20 seconds…. then they tend to come back fully recharged while my stuff is still only about 3/4 off cooldown… in the ele’s case, flaw is the ele class itself, health/defense/damage choices on it are VERY ugly to make, had a lot more luck on other classes dealing with the standard trolled-to-death stealth spamming thieves (ranger longbow skill #2 tracking the fools in stealth ftw before they finally added enough “buffs” to the pets —--nerfs to the class—— to kill the class)

Best luck ive had with gank thieves on an ele is try and get aoe fields all over the place asap… mean they have to suck enough for me to survive more than the 1.5 second delay..including an evade…after they first pop up, but water magic heal/chill followed with some earth magic cripple/immobilize will be your best friends vs gankers…IF they suck enough for you to survive those first couple seconds

I get the feeling the elementalist will be taking a seat on the bench with rangers next, probably the thief after that…dont think engi is going to get buffed (nerfed) to death until necro and theif have gone before it

Reverence.6915:

Ele has to make extreme risk/reward choices in terms of dps/survivability, something other classes don’t have to do (Dire/Carrion stats in WvW).

Instead of buffing ele, just make every other class have the same risk/reward system eles do. Though tbh, our trait lines need a huge rework. They’re just not synergised.

Elementalist trait lines are a flat out lie, ignore the names on the lines and just look at the stats they buff like any other class… The trait lines names (and many of the traits therein) make a very strong suggestion towards some kind of element specialization (GW1 ele) where you could be overwhelmingly powerful but otherwise DOA without an epic monk, or you could be epic defensive (GW1 ele tanked stuff way better than any warrior all day long, was only outdone by shadow form), or you could have a pretty decent mix of both.

GW2 Ele is made to look like that, but in reality it’s just a far more complicated (with much smaller reward) version of any other class and nothing more

Noliver.1475:

DeWolfe.2174:

What backstab needs is a huge reduction in damage. The 10% crit dmg reduction incoming isn’t enough. Thieves need 25% damage reduction to get them in the realm of being realistically balanced. With mobility and stealth, Thieves should be hitting the lightest, not the hardest.

The class has been the golden child of the Devs since launch and it still shows.

Golden child of the Devs?

The fact that theifs recieve nerfs on every single update (yes some buffs are nerfs in disguise) rings a bell?

The fact that none of the balance team and dev mains a theif tells you something?

The fact that the theif gameplay vid last shown have the devs laughing hard at their theif dying countless times speaks to you?

The fact they said specifically that warriors are so op now basically everyone should roll one get in you thick skull?

golden child? I think you are complaining about the wrong class

Sounds like why i quit playing my ranger, and now spend the most time on warrior/guard/mesmer… I fear for my ele, thing is medeocre, means “buffs” (nerfs) until it takes the same seat as my ranger are soon to follow T-T

To add something to the discussion, Thieves get 2 things… stealth, and teleports/stun breaks… and the only way they can be most effective is to abuse both these mechanics to the absolute max… their actual dps isnt quite what it might seem because the good ones also have just enough initiative in store to stun/daze your heal/escape attempt and that’s it. Best way to get rid some wvw ganker? live through his first spike and dont die for about 15 seconds, after which point he is spent and has to go away long enough for you to do the same.

pve thief? sorry…stealth me through the entire dungeon or roll something else cause this class’s other mechanics are not nearly so pve friendly, which also needs to be fixed imo

JUST SAYING… GW1 ele is how it should have been done and this attunement swapping thing was as gigantic a mistake as the rangers being forced to drag around that horrid pet… the GW1 ele design would have been JUST FINE.

And yes, eles have loads of extra heals and defence measures, but go play one… your ONLY REAL defense is to either troll it to death over the course of 60 seconds or more (ele in defense gear, defense weapons etc do less damage than my ranger using axe main hand)… or…
ZERK ZERK ZERK. KILL IT WITH FIRE BEFORE IT KILLS YOU

Just saying, the incoming changes to crit damage are REALLY going to twist the screws on the elementalist class who’s only real defense IS to kill or be killed. Questioning why the ele was made as such is perfectly legit imo.

Should say, I run ele and do OK..but that’s it. Other than frost bow or abusing mechanics like the burning rush/retreat abilities, the Ele is stuck with making some really messy choices between defense/offense. Yes, you can have high defense on an ele, but your damage is shrunk so low that you are likely to get burnt down before the bad guy… and yes, you can have high damage except that you will have to be in melee range with ZERO defense to speak of…And Yes, you can have the saftey of range and fairly average dps at the cost of everything being an easily avoided aoe field…

Compare with warriors cause those are the dev’s baby or something but: Highest raw single target spikes bar none, high sustainable dps, easy access to ranged AND melee aoe attacks, very high health pool, very strong self heals, personal invulnerability skills do NOT hamper all other actions, stability utilities, aoe rez and the warrior doesn’t need to get OOC to have all these things available… Maybe some dev met my GW1 Ele in FA poorly or something, but all the ele’s are asking for is a little more love and leeway with builds/gear

Unfortunately you and I have chosen the race that the devs seem to hate the most. All other races have a racial skill that is actually useful in some way, typically bringing something that other class elites can have (charr warband support, asuran golems, sylvari take root, human hounds of balth) where the best norn summon currently is…summon wurm. That and armoring issues with the norn female mesh (male/female clearly use the same mesh because stuff on the females clearly wraps around that horribly misshapen norn male frame) and lest we forget hair that clips your body and many other things the dev’s have said many times will never be fixed…

I disagree about making these skills totally social, but in GW1 the norn’s transformations had them still carrying their weapons, so they could be altered to just be a combat transmogrify (like the infinite watchknight tonic) where we keep our weapons in hand and the xform only buffs stats rather than replacing them. Their biggest combat issue at the moment actually is simply the way the attacks are structured, there is no mobility…you ARE a pve mob, and a bad one at that being unable to move during your attacks.

Because reading a few paragraphs is more than the average forum reader can handle:
Norns are the only ones without a useful combat elite (snow leopard for stealth/rush is…sketchy) And turning them to a combat transmogrify (basically a tonic where you keep your weapons/attacks) is the best fix imo

Cause i already made this post, already put this in another post, but felt it deserves a place here and this one needs a bump, so here is the math logic of what’s involved:

This useless grinder for next to no stats (ascended crafting)… i craft ascended weapons because i so happen to like a few of the skins.. How about a little math here, huh?

16 orrian temples (each one gives 30 dragonite..the highest drop rate in the game, bar none) to make just over 500 dragonite ore for your 5 ingots to make a weapon/chest piece. Doesn’t sound too bad, right?
25 dungeon paths @ 20 empyreal fragmers per run (best/fastest way that i know of) to make 500 empyreal stars for your vision crystal
IF you do these other two to exclusion of all else, you actually should wind up with enough bloodstone dust to make up your 500 needed…BUT champ trains, each champ box dropping on the order of 5-10 dust, you need to kill probably 80-90 champs to make 500
Not too bad right? we just made 1 weapon. or 1 chest piece.. Oh, i forgot…you have 2 weapon slots on land, 2 underwater…ok…do the above 4 times.
WAIT WAIT WAIT, we still need the rest of our armor? SO: 1000 dragonite/empy/dust for the 5 lesser vision crystals (2 bricks each) means 32 more orrian temples, 50 more dungeons, and…all day long in frostgorge sound.

So now we’ve farmed 2500 dragonite/empy/dust…. so that should be 84 orrian temples, 125 dungeon runs, and…thats more champs than players in the game. BUT WAIT…. THERES MOAR!!!

So now we have made 1 single full set for 1 character… I personally use 4 or 5 characters frequently enough to want to trick them out/make them fractal ready and generally show off the looks i make (what was supposed to be the entire point of guild wars loot systems) and so forth… and i will need more than just 1 set of armor (sorry, i dont 100% zerk, take your zerk outta my teq and quit feeding points and loot to my enemies in wvw)
So that many more (2 sets minimum on 4-5 characters) 1500 asc mat grinders…
5000 asc mats per character (4 weapons, and 2 sets of armor) times 4-5 characters means i need 20000-30000 untradeable ascended mats that come in 20 or 30 at the time… and that number is lowballing it because i hate the stats associated with the weapon skins i really want… i use more than just 4 weapons per character, and 8 ascended weapons per character… yea it’s safe to say that all i want would mean bare minimum of 45,000 ascended mats… FOR GREAT TALLY!! that is: 1500 orrian temples, 2150 dungeons, and hopefully not more than a day on the champ grinds making up w/e the other 2 didn’t yield in bloodstone dust.

Am I the only one who sees why ascended crafting lights a fire under so many people’s rear and makes me so depressed i dunno if i wanna keep playing some days?

I do feel it should be noted that doing the above would also yield a truckload of gold and other things… this is why I don’t complain about the costs of the mats involved… the money is shoveled in your direction for all this…but…just… i’d rather gold be the issue than some trickle in account bound, must farm materials /wrists

(edited because i failed arithamatic and speeling…math more important.)

tattoohead.3217:

The difference between ascended and exotic is laughable anyhow, it will have almost no herring on the outcome of a battle. The more skilled player will still win. And IMO the armor skins are lame, I like mine better.

this useless grinder for next to no stats… i craft ascended weapons because i so happen to like a few of the skins.. How about a little math here, huh?

16 orrian temples (each one gives 30 dragonite..the highest drop rate in the game, bar none) to make just over 500 dragonite ore for your 5 bricks to make a weapon/chest piece. Doesn’t sound too bad, right?
25 dungeon paths @ 20 empyreal fragmers per run (best/fastest way that i know of) to make 500 empyreal stars for your vision crystal
IF you do these other two to exclusion of all else, you actually should wind up with enough bloodstone dust to make up your 500 needed…BUT champ trains, each champ box dropping on the order of 5-10 dust, you need to kill probably 80-90 champs to make 500

Not too bad right? we just made 1 weapon. or 1 chest piece.. Oh, i forgot…you have 2 weapon slots on land, 2 underwater…ok…do the above 4 times.

wait, we still need the rest of our armor? SO: 1000 dragonite/empy/dust for the 5 lesser vision crystals (2 bricks each) means 32 more orrian temples, 50 more dungeons, and…all day long in frostgorge sound.

So now we’ve farmed 2500 dragonite/empy/dust…. so that should be 84 orrian temples, 125 dungeon runs, and…thats more champs than players in the game. BUT WAIT…. THERES MOAR!!!

So now we have made 1 single full set for 1 character… I personally use 4 or 5 characters frequently enough to want to trick them out/make them fractal ready/kitten and so forth… and i will need more than just 1 set of armor (sorry, i dont 100% zerk, take your zerk outta my teq and quit feeding points and loot to my enemies in wvw)

so that many more (2 sets minimum on 4-5 characters) 1500 asc mat grinders…

Am I the only one who sees why ascended crafting lights a fire under so many people’s rear?

craftable agony resist infusions… price sucks, but a +10 @binary price increase off +1…
1 2 3 4 5 +6 +7 +8 +9 +10
1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512
(ghetto formatting ftw, deal with it.)

I get the feeling the price involved (i know that currently, a buy out to get a +8 is abouts 19g, and you would need 4 of those to make a +10, or about 90-100g with reagents) is still cheaper than 500 ectos i believe, or said ectos and 250 of your favorite t6 mat

chance for ascended drops other than rings is… low. I think i could win the lottery 4 times, get struck by lightning 50 different occasions and see 5 acts of congress and 2 acts of god long before i am the recipient of an rng ascended weapon/armor drop…

The materials market is beyond screwed up because it’s also effecting those t1 mats as I am sure people have gotten off on a kick promoting jute into the higher tiers lol

Also i think they can keep the gear account bound (i dont like it, but i can deal with it) they just need to make the dragonite/bloodstone/empyreal into something tradeable because i would rather do things i like more for the ones that come from content i dont care for and supplement what i cant buy with a little of said content (meta bosses for me, if anyone is taking a tally), this for me would make the things less… depressing and game ruining at this point

Also: there is a fun way to skirt the ascended armor/AR issue if you get your 6 ascended trinkets: back and rings infused, accessories and amulet give you 15 AR plus 6 infusion slots to play with beyond that… but now, you can craft infusions
The +8 ar one is about where i stop because overhead costs beyond that point start getting insane (the number of +1’s needed goes up like binary 1, 2,4,8,16,32….etc.. @128 for +8, across 6 pieces (about 16-19 gold each if bought/crafted either way… but its doable) you can grab 60 AR and get into the 40’s on fractals (again, that IS a lot of money, but its still cheaper than ANY ascended armor with minimum of 1 damask per piece (14-15 gold).

Woljnir.7810:

Personally I find it unnecessary. They’ve already done us a great favor making them account bound. And it doesn’t take that long to switch. Just park every character by a bank when you log out. Ya’ll are acting like it takes 10 minutes to swap. It takes like 20 seconds xD.

20 seconds your way, 10 minutes when you reach that first ori node and find out the hard way that you forgot your tools lol

The way the finishers have been done is wonderful, I think something similar could work here easily… and also apply it to minis too while you’re at it

As for the 8 full sets of tools I’ve already bought (before account bound)… I think I’m almost ready to accept losing my $100 worth of Flamekissed armors, a refund would be excellent but at the minimum, making them something like the finishers would make me feel like the money wasn’t a total waste…

yes, balth back is/was in the game (removed quite fast from the pvp locker) so 3 other gods incoming (kormir isnt a god, shes just a crowned thief who cant keep her own realm under control)

Quivers yes… outside of ascended mystic forge ones… BUT more like rox’s quiver (something i might be proud to wear into battle), less like legolas (elves..need i say more?)
Anton’s blades /hungry
OOOHHH idea of the ages: since i doubt old meta stuff will be put back in for reaquisition during their proper event… the meta award should be a craftable skin item (starting with all the ones that already passed and didnt/wont come back)

How about a cape? or a cloak?
The item slot need not be an actual “back item” because how about a utility belt/ruck sack?
Moar wings…sans the flapping (hate to go here, but think victoria’s secret commercials)…or for something realistic, there were armored cavalry units who wore feathered back pieces “wings” of sorts just not nearly so fancy.
More shiney things like the fractal back, but not the fractal back…
Unit markers… the guild back pieces are OK, but real ones basically sat on short flag poles so the guy on the hill could actually see where which unit was ;P
Different colors of things that already exist (or just dye channels would be great)
more backpacks (but less so weighted at the bottom…engi universal kit is close…size them correctly for norn females plz)
There are NPCs around LA near the PvP portals wearing what looks kinda like a messenger back (man purse) slung over their shoulder, wtb this
Why have an item at all? make it an equipable aura Oo

Bombsaway.7198:

Heck NO! That would be a hideous mistake for the game.
Too many people hate crafting and there is no reliable way to get ascended without crafting.
One of the worst ideas this game has had was to create “must craft” items.

Correction: “must craft” items who are account bound, who’s most annoying bits are also account bound and force you into a farming grinder…

I think the costs are high…even dumb for what you actually get, but sustainable for now. Just for the love of… take your dragonite, empyreal and bloodstone costs and… go snort your vision crystals. Weapons need not require a full vision crystal, and frankly.. 1 would be quite enough for a full armor set in my rather unique and typically ignored/hated opinion. I got plenty of other posts ranting on these so if you’re interested, click my name and have fun on your forum safari -.-

Oghier.7419:

Thank you for doing this research. You’ve saved me from the temptation to use the forge to fish for precursors

Here, here…but why fish in the mystic toilet? Need a picture of what you will find the most of? :P

This is the reason the thing earned its nickname, and the fact you can “/wiki mystic toilet” in game and get taken to its page…

While I like the idea that I don’t have to buy some recipe for crafting every time for some neat skin… I don’t gamble the thing because the odds are stacked so epic in the house’s favor, and I’m not feeling lucky :P

get in game and type

/wiki mystic toilet

it will take you to the page with all the info

I actually don’t take issue with the materials in so far as things that existed in the past. The part of ascended crafting that even making your legendary manages to make profitable is the funneling of players through content that they may or may not like. My personal one is metas… sorry, but i hate these things with a very special passion, and i know there are others, probably quite a few who hate my personal favorite, the dungeons.

The materials costs of things like silk and such, though silk is so far out of proportion, can be handled by the rather inflated economy just because money is basically thrown at you once you hit 80 and begin doing anything other than leveling another alt or standing around in LA… about 1 gold for 10-20 minutes effort plus any other drops typically off any dungeon and then the mass kill farm off some of those metas….constantly working on the luck mechanic (this this actually works, I have seen an improvement in my drop rates…first time ever in any game)…money is there. Again, what I am not a fan of is… 16 orrian temples (30 dragonite each, 500 req for weapons/chest) and 25 dungeon paths (ok i dont mind this so much, but 20 empyreal fragments out of 500 needed for weapon/chest armor) and 16/25 iterations for my 4-5 characters and however many weapons each one may need (some i just take skins and slap them onto exotics cause no way im doing this twice if i can help it atm) and I think the picture of what my gripe is should be clear enough.

Mind you, while i think the economy can support the silk thing for the moment, nerfing that particular recipe…more correctly normalizing it with the others…would do go quite a ways for a lot of people. And consider, these market corrections have probably put the screws to anyone who didnt already have rank 400 in all crafts available, because for one reason or another…the costs of some other materials have also increased…except the ones from those mid level zones where people sit for hours twiddling their thumbs waiting on that current special meta (this also needs to be worked on, but i digress).

Start with a question: How long is it supposed to take to craft ascended armor/weapons for a single character? And keep in mind, I want to also know exactly what kind of player is used as the metric when making the decision of how long does it take, and how many are they expected to make…

Ready? Set! RANT:

Ascended armors… frankly, i wouldn’t be so wound up over the stuff (weapons too…weapons are worse) if i could get my hands on the bits that are currently account bound (dragonite/empy/bloodstone) some way other than being funneled for weeks…or months potentially (1 damask/leather/steel per day without buying any…off subject though) into content that i hate and otherwise avoid like plague. The bonus you get is like 36 points higher in stats and to be able to include an AR slot…BUT keep in mind that infusions exist that add stat bonuses. Currently the cost of these are…insane…but there exist possibilities here… So 36 stat points and being required to transmute away yet another skin that a very, VERY few cosmetic additions/subtractions would make beautiful is not worth a month of my game time enjoyment.

TBH frankly, since fractals are capped at 50 I’m going to ignore the AR slot on asc armors and just craft up a bunch of +8 AR infusions…across 6 asc accessories that will bump me to 60 AR which is plenty enough atm and it wont have me channeled into a 1500 dragonite grinder (thats 50 orrian temples and 75 dungeon runs) for each of 1 set of armor who’s meta is about to get broken (give it a couple months), my secondary set(s)…and OH…this on 4-5 80s (out of 14) since i get so bored of playing the same old thing for more than a day or two at the time. I understand I can only realistically expect to run most content on my few favorites, but that is still more “mains” (since I so hate that model of progression) than most people play across 3 different games.

So: MONTHS of asc grinding is BORING, not alt friendly in the least, and funnels people like me though content i would almost rather didn’t exist in the first place…all to xmute weapons onto exotics cause the people who set stats to colors hate me (why did healing get the most beautiful color scheme, AND WHY ON EARTH DID ASSASSIN STATS GET CORNSILK AND EBONY), and armor with questionable improvements for the time spent considering the AR slot issue can be gotten around other ways. Yes, i said i am going to ignore crafting the armor, but the point here can stand for others who are going to go ahead and jump through that hoop.

Basically, I only ask the account bound bits be made a bit..ok, a lot faster to gather (25 dungeon paths and 16 orrian temples for 1 weapon/armor chest piece currently), and I’m not all sure i care how its done at this point because i don’t dare dream of the ways that it could be made worse for so little gain. (Again here, I’m basically crafting the weapons for skins because some of them actually are really nice looking, they just come with the worst stats possible for the characters whom the colors match with).

Is there any hope?
Or is all in vain?

Wanna make it suck to zerk? More like teq, more like the tower of nightmares, more trash like undead in Arah, more snares, more immobilize, triple (or more) the mob density everywhere and BOOM! U CANT HAZ ZERK DO NOT PASS GO DO NOT COLLECT $200.

But seriously.. nothing will wipe out a mob of zerkers like an uncritable condition spammer with even more conditions caused by environment effects AKA Teq and Tower of Nightmares.

I agree though that the core mechanics of aggro, dps and other things need to remain as they are, and these changes be focused only on SOME new content in the future. Another step to properly dumb down the zerk fest would be to add more closed doors between bosses in instances, I know everyone hates this, but closing those doors and forcing people to deal with the things that do damage exactly as the OP said bosses should, will force people to take off the zerk for a few minutes to deal with things that require that extra bit of time, force you to pick your focus and accept that there will be some damage you’re just not going to be able to dodge out of.
For the above, fight mobs in arah in zerk gear vs something a bit more balanced (as opposed to just skipping past them willy-nilly as all the kids not worth a pack of kools do). This is where the closed doors and forced encounters will wear down the number of leet zerkers vs the ones who actually have enough skill to get away with it.

Honestly, I don’t want to see the “DPS is king of PvE” meta go away entirely, but if the dev’s so chose, the mechanics to make it happen already exist, and there are design features like forcing people to deal with mobs and not just run past them from boss to boss. These things exist, but nobody runs them because the balance of loot also needs to be shifted.

Said balance: The final dungeon reward box needs to contain less than 50% of the total loot for the dungeon… more like 30% or less, and the rest needs to be distributed such that skipping anything means a massive reduction in the quality of the overall run (skipping kholer in AC cause he doesn’t drop epic? nothing a shot at asc weapon/armor box wont fix) etc…

So yes, plenty of other things they can do to kill off zerking noobness without changing overall mechanics, and without punishing people who are actually good enough at what they do to NOT put anything towards defense.

THIS THIS THIS…. only thing is that i want it applied retroactively to replace the skins I’ve already lost to any number of things (accidental deletion..it happens, reskinned so many times idk where it went, the look didnt pan out as it should have, deleted because nothing existed at the time to go with it…RIP horns of the dragon T-T, etc)

The “troll merchants” are only from items that are beyond mythically rare (to the point i doubt they even drop anymore) from black lion chests. They are not consumed on use, but allow you to summon any number of things: Merchants, AH npcs, bank access (iirc) and even a hair stylist from wintderday #1… none of which can be accessed by other people. If you drop a consumable one (merchant and trade post only, the others don’t summon npcs) then others can still use them (afaik).

So making the permanent “personal” ones useable by all would be great

Jaymee.1560:

What I don’t get about the new changes to silk is… a friend told me, there were just SO much silk that was sold back to the TP, that ANet made it so instead of 2 piece = 1 bolt, that it’s not 3 pieces per 1 bolt… and the thing is, and please if I am wrong correct me nicely, that when you sold it back to the TP, going on the TP, to me, suggest that it was going into a Cosmic vortex, never to be seen again. It’s a computer system, it calculates numbers… I can’t rightful wrap my mind around that somewhere in Tyria, all this silk is held up in a warehouse somewhere…

It’s still definitely 3 pieces per 1 bolt of silk, and 100 bolts to make the weaving thread means 300 silk scraps needed… as for that silk warehouse, we know evon gnashblade is dirty, money hungry and hold the monopoly that allows him to charge sometimes insane “listing fees” (not many people sell legendaries after making them, but most of them sell for amounts who’s listing fee is several hundred gold in and of itself), so the warehouses of silk…or the stuff simply being deleted, wouldn’t surprise me at all

imsoenthused.1634:

Inimicus.7162:

imsoenthused.1634:

yet another example of a problem that would just go away for everyone if every instance of soul binding was replaced with account binding.

actually account binding isn’t going to help me here… these materials are already account bound, and need to be unbound entirely for what i think is my “best shot” idea to work lol

I was referring to the end product(ie the ascended item), not the materials. I’d have no problem with the materials being completely unbound, but I’m sure someone can probably tell us why that’s a bad idea.

I hope they could, though my thought is that making the bound items easier to aquire would ease some of the pain that makes us want soulbound to vanish all together lol

Agreed… what’s even more hilarious about the whole thing: you are making SILK WEAVING THREAD correct? so this thread takes truckloads of silk, and then….GOSSAMER THREAD AAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHA trolololololololololol
Instead of say: SILK THREAD to make SILK WEAVING THREAD. Don’t ask me, this looks like the kind of thing you might get out of a government or some corporate office rather than anyone who might actually know something about how markets work. Sorry, but the entire ascended crafting thing pushed well beyond insane from the start (not all of us have 1 character who uses 2 or 3 weapons), and while I understand they wanted to reduce the silk surplus, I think that would have happened naturally (and at a much more healthy rate) if they had started the damask thing with normalized values as per all the other ascended materials…especially since they still have 4 more human gods worth of back pieces to go, and no reason not to include damask in their construction.

And while you’re at it…dev’s please take a minute to nerf hammer the dragonite/bloodstone/empyreal requirements too for poor souls with more than a few characters.

imsoenthused.1634:

yet another example of a problem that would just go away for everyone if every instance of soul binding was replaced with account binding.

actually account binding isn’t going to help me here… these materials are already account bound, and need to be unbound entirely for what i think is my “best shot” idea to work lol

Removal of troll-bound items is never going to happen in gw2. All games claim the reason for it is to “keep the markets from overinflating/becoming flooded with unused versions of XXXXX” “make items special” “make you think before equipping it” blah blah blah… Besides, the transmutation method above makes them plenty of money as is. The Anomaly is easy enough, back pieces are annoying, but doable…you can buy back piece “sets” off the AH (plush charr SET) which is an unpackable that includes a white quality “straps” item for doing the transmute thing. (this is how warriors get their hands on engineer starter back pieces as best I can tell).. as for replacing the stats, I see no reason account binding would cause issues for things that are soulbound from the get-go (meta achievment skins, ascended trinkets since account-wide fractal level is a slap in the face if you had not previeously maxed out more than just 1 character for AR, etc) At least with The Anomaly, if you haven’t gone and transmuted it to ascended, it isn’t too hard to skin the now junk white (do it to level 60+ white/blue so you can keep your sigil) back onto good enough stats…but for back and forth, I’d like it too, but I say don’t get your hopes up

Mind you, I expect this thread to get flamed to death within minutes:

Ascended crafting. Seriously. Specifically the account bound bits that all go into making Vision Crystals. The numbers of mats required vs the rate to get them is ok if you are only planning on making a set or two for a couple characters. But, in what I’m sure is a unique case like mine, where we are talking about more than just 1 of every class (15 80s across 2 accounts) and worse, wanting the stats of some asc weapons, but the skins of others (why healing stat get white/gold?) getting 500 of 3 different materials, to include one specifically from a form of game play that I despise (meta bosses), even farming just for the skins to put over exotic stats (seriously, healing?) for a couple characters turns these things into a grinder more boring than making my legendary ever was.

Frankly, best solution i have to offer is unbind that mess, and make it where people can sell either the raw material, or the refined bricks/ingots/stars. I’d happily buy dragonite (my personal bane) off those people who run meta bosses to the exclusion of almost all other content, and I’m sure some of them would love to buy empyreal bits off me when i finally get back to what i love and rebuild my stash. /rage

Having dragonite/empyreal drop at higher rates (gotta admit, i’ve never had issues getting bloostone dust as it is thrown at me whilst getting the others) would probably result is unusual amounts of vitriol about lazy and w/e, and I highly doubt there are any plans to ever reduce the cost of those mats in the involved recipes (before the gem store crafting mat expansions, 1 full stack of said ascended mats was only half what you needed to make any 1 item).

Please let me return to what i like (dungeons) and use the gold i make to buy it off someone else who is doing what they like (meta bosses), or let me choose what color the item i make comes out to be (why with the white/gold epicness going to healing?)

wanna kill the queensdale champ zerg? nerf the drops to zone-level/quality only out of the champ boxes.

Mind you, half the reason for that queensdale zerg over places like FGS is that all but 1 of those champs is tied in with an event, so a lot of the zerg is there karma farming as much as anything else.

Also a less repugnant fix would be making other zones more profitable for champ trains, higher base level will mean more karma gain etc. The only other event train that i knew besides queensdale and CS was in kessex hills which has also become 10 kinds of obnoxious about wanting to stall some events, etc for farming… recomended putting that mess in zones that people basically dont care about (dont go to, are usually empty, dont have meta bosses etc) brisban wildlands, lornar’s pass, timberline falls, etc

asking how it would effect the trade post? does anyone actually buy 20 slot bags off the ah, and does anyone who post them actually make money since the overhead cost is a flat 10g either way… i see no harm in making those junk bags into something that can be forged for a shot a something better… a rainbow bag of holding would be one more hilarious thing to link in map chat when everyone gets on an kitten measuring contest linking legendaries and such :P

frankly, i’d rather see her stilled of all power and sold to some centaur slaver or other such nefarious type where the only choice i gotta make is whether to kill her myself or not (live, longer, suffer moar, die forgotten you rotten weed)… she’s certainly not going to have made any lasting friends from all the groups who she pulled together that we then smashed to tiny bits

This IS epic, I support fully. But wish aloud that when this happens, my guild’s emblem becomes a the pink and green beaver I seen on some WvW forts xD

I’ve never been able to use someone else’s unlimited merchant or BLT npc. But making them useable by everyone would be very nice indeed, and people who got these items will not need fear being hunted down and lynched for dropping a troll merchant.

Wrap this round up real fast, because frankly, it’s boring and it isn’t being released in meaningful amounts.

While the concept for it is a great idea, what it really should be is a preamble (all be it, a long one) to a major expansion where a second personal story-type arc takes place.

We all know the gripes, so how about some suggestions for Living World Round 2:

Skins gained from meta achievements (preferable all gained since launch) need to able to be reaquired by people who finish the meta, account bound, unlimited use etc.

The overall releases need to be much, much larger/longer (1-2 months), although the meta achievements need to be smaller, or broken down a little more (1-2 weeks, but only one or two very large changes). EX: The tower of nightmares was honestly a large step in the right direction for large-scale design, it lingered for a good bit, there are very clear effects left on the visible world and most important, there was a new meta for the tower itself and some of the post-tower stuff. I can nit-pick about event/mob scaling, loot etc, it needs a lot of work, but I’ll leave it. Actually, the tower as a “living world” event was very well done on the scale of the overall scope, but I think the tower itself should have lingered longer and been more friendly to smaller groups while the post-tower meta should have already gone away.

All this will eventually lead to some end with Scarlet, many hints that could go in loads of directions have been dropped along the way in dealing with her… but at the end of a long arc like this, something really huge needs to happen. This is where I think the living story can make or break itself: The end of this story arc needs to end with a massive content release, if not on the order of a full scale expansion, wherein either more personal story, or more living world in place of personal story, will lead us into this new (massive) content.

However, even though the tower of nightmares overall was done quite well from the standpoint of how a living world event should look from afar, don’t forget to get into the zone itself and nit-pick it to death… put things that might be hard to find or get to without a zerg, but the overall area needs to be navigable by solo players. And where the tower failed on the small size was it’s lack of set group content in my opinion. The chambers and even the Hybrid could all be done solo, where previous releases like the Molten Alliance and the Aetherblades included actual dungeons (who have since been rolled into fractals…i prefer having my jade maw back, haven’t seen it since fractured). But having content in the release both for zergs/solo’s (that downscale hardcore for less than 5) and people like me who like farming the dungeon settings more (molten/aether).

Hate to put it in a nutshell, but more like the tower of nightmares on the large scale flow-chart, somewhat smaller/easier metas, broken down into several stages of the same large event series, instead of one huge meta for the whole thing. Rewarding content for all types of play, a pre-event that is short any may not even come with a meta, just a small story instance, the main event (like assaulting the tower) which should be the longest stage (3-5 weeks maybe?) and the post-game wrap-up which should take a week or two depending on the size of the mess… and across the whole chain of living world, each major ending should herald a gigantic content release, so be cookin something real fancy and real big in the background (start of the downfall of the next dragon, new continent, cleanup of zhaitan, rebuilding of orr…appearance of palawa joko the undead king from elona, etc.) And the reward skins from the metas needs to be account bound and unlimited recall, either the same place we grab zenith weapons, or some merchant in the hub cities.

Malediktus.9250:

most top players also got most permanent achievements. I got like 400 daily/monthly points less than maximum, but still top 50

True, but the point was to offer something different from some uncalled for ap gain capping, i happen to like getting my achievment boxes, and farming way more than dailies whenever possible is how i do it… my suggestion was only a way of basically leaving things unchanged but making life a little better for the OP and his type of player. I see nothing wrong with what he was asking, just that his idea would severely cramp others. Besides, let’s be honest, if you didn’t start at the top of that list, you aren’t going to ever be getting there, or getting any higher on it until those at the top burn out and quit, end of story. Those leaderboards, and chasing that #1 position is just a no-win endurance race where the #1 gets props for a bit and is forgotten very quickly after they can’t do it anymore, I don’t mind people chasing that…it’s on them, but I do think they don’t need to spend all their playtime just chasing dailies is all.

So many of the hair issues for me would be fixed by simply binding the long, flowing ones who clip CLEAR THROUGH YOUR CHARACTER MODEL onto the back the way a few styles seem to have been done, it isn’t as pretty as they should be, but then again, it beats clipping issues.

Norn females have issues with shoulder armors… Clearly the skins wrap around something that probably looks a lot like a norn male. On females the shoulders sit WAY HIGH off the visible shoulder, and are frequently needlessly gigantic..item preview CoF light armor shoulders on norn female for one of the very worst if you don’t believe me…. for others the “stately” shoulders sit misplaced, the Norn T2 heavy shoulder (yes, 1 sided… asymmetry is another huge complaint i have with whoever designs their armors, they keep making the differences way too big).

As to Sylvari, the basic issue for me is that they took the concept art and corrupted it into some kind of ugly. From flowing leaves in place of hair, and smooth surfaces for skin (in the concept art) to some kind of twisted, twiggy mess… Lest we forget that the Sylvari female cultural armor replaces your body model with some stock model when you put it on (so if you wear it, body customization becomes a moot point anyway). More smooth leaves, more like Caithe and other concept arts from loading screens, frankly…and fewer weird twigs and twisted faces. Fixing the cultural armors to appear for chosen body type would be good too.

Funny thing is that I’m sure if someone necro’d up all my other gripe threads about armor/character designs since launch, they would all contain basically identical themes, if not the exact same gripes :P

Oddly, I dont care much for the whole “pvp masqurade” armor, though if the chest/shoulder were available in pve the forum mods would have deleted far, far fewer of my posts angry about my issues finding light armor shoulders that dont suffer massive size issues on norns and didnt get smashed by the asymmetric OCD that seems to grip their art department

Love all the above

to add to one:

That “Lost and Found” vendor should also include old meta items we have gotten (gas mask, dragon horns, mad memories, etc to name a few of my personal beefs lol) since they will not add them to the achievement tab…and it needs to be implemented to where we can get our old stuff. I got screwed by the festival hat guy in gw1 because i had ditched those epic year 1 skins long before he got in.

Another line of QoL improvements: Fix Hair styles who clip with the character model in any stance… I’m using compromise hair selections over the styles i really love because the ones i like clip blatantly through the character when doing anything other than standing still with weapons sheathed… these longer hairs that hang down through the character’s body need to be bound onto the back or something (similar to Eir’s hair). Asking for armor would be way too much, i get this…but just keep it from hanging through my character’s waist while swimming (this looks 50 kinds of wrong on female characters), or clipping clear through my shoulder while in combat stance. Or generally hanging through my character at any time no matter what position she happens to be in (never noticed this issue with the available male styles)

TheBlackLeech.9360:

Why not allow players to refine bloodstone bricks into bloodstone shards?

ZING! You have hit the nail on the head sir.

For my own suggestion I present: Transmute Bloodstone Dust into Dragonite ore and Empyreal Stars, and all around.

The mana-ish thing already does exist in the form of thief initiative, make it look different on the UI and VIOLA!

At this stage in GW2 I would delete my eles for a rit without spirits but otherwise along the gw1 lines simply because they will be forced to make LIGHTNING do damage instead of making the element of choice for running away…

Also: no Cantha or Elona? Guess I should quit feeling so surprised… 2 years in and we are only chasing some annoyingly perky Sylvari who’s constantly on the rag rather than deciding which dragon to chase next… and I don’t hold any hopes for the ultra off-the cuff mention made in the new fractal but it isn’t here nor there.